


Pianico

by babybahamut



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 16:31:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3857389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babybahamut/pseuds/babybahamut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an anniversary present for my fiancee midgi, a Nicomaki shipper! It's not really my ship, but I like it. It's fluffy friendship happytimes, nothing lewd here. It takes place a little while after the last episode of the anime, so moderate spoiler warning just in case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pianico

Even the most focused of individuals would have struggled to stay on track in the warm, sleepy Spring weather, and as Maki sat blankly at her piano she fought a losing battle against the day's oppressive drowsiness. Muse had disbanded, but the idol club had not, and so her song-writing duties prevailed; however, despite occasionally pressing a key or three in order to convince herself that she was indeed working hard, the notation paper remained incriminatingly blank.   
  
A discordant complaint reverberated around the room as she gave the piano one last frustrated thump and walked away, taking refuge before the grand bay windows overlooking the gardens of her home. The view would be invigorating, she thought; the season brought with it the bounty of life, an explosion of pinks and blues in the newly-bloomed flowers, the constant toing-and-froing of countless birds, and the wind made visible in the lush grass of the lawn. Seeing the world so full of energy would be her tonic, and filled with nature's splendour, she would be once again ready to attack the piano and take revenge for the wasted morning.  
  
The view was ruined, however, by Nico.  
  
Immediately standing out against the bright colours of the season, Nico's distinct twintails bobbed in the most irritatingly upbeat way as she bounced up the driveway towards Maki's house. Fearing her afternoon was about to meet the same fate as the morning, Maki ran to the front door.   
  
“Nico Nico Nii~ Nico-nii is ringing the doorbell to your heart, nico~” it sang.   
  
Maki wrenched open the door to find a beaming Nico standing there, mid-routine even without an audience. Completely misreading Maki's face, she continued unabated.  
“Maaaaki-chaaaaaan, I'm soooo haaaaappy to seeeeee you!” She launched into a hug, but Maki reflexively stepped backwards and out of range. Nico stumbled, but recovered. “Your favourite Nico-chan took time out of her busy day to come and visit you~”  
“No one asked you to do that,” she snapped.  
Nico's facade broke for a second, but she wasn't one to admit defeat that easily. “Nozomi said that _you_ said you missed me, so I thought I'd do something nice and come surprise you, nico~”  
Maki's face was briefly indistinguishable from her hair. “I- that- that's not what I said at all! I said _we_ miss you! As in, all of you!”  
“It's only you and me here, so you don't need to hide it~ We all know you meant to say 'I miss Nico-chan'~”  
“Ugh... I'd need to take a serious knock to the head before that happened...”  
“Hey!” The cutesy persona was dropped, and Maki had won this round. “I went out of my way to do something nice for you, so you could at least pretend to appreciate it! I had to walk all this way and you didn't even invite me in for a drink!”  
“What do you mean you walked? No one's going to believe that!” It was no small trek, an hour or more of walking even with a good pace; taking the train instead would have been quite understandable.  
“Of course I walked! I- well, you know how it is,” she said, folding her arms and taking on an air of contempt. “Our driver was taking Mum out somewhere, so couldn't take me, even though I prearranged it...”  
“Driver...” Maki frowned, but her temper suddenly cooled; she twirled her hair, preoccupied with something. “Well... I'm busy. But I suppose I can give you five minutes to cool off.”  
“Pfft! With that attitude, you'll be lucky if I stay as long as five minutes!”  
“Just-! Get in before I shut the door on you!”  
  
-  
  
The atmosphere was heavy, with neither of them wanting to appear too happy to spend time in the company of the other. Instead, they both sipped their drinks in unbearably awkward silence, chancing occasional glances to make sure the other wasn't looking at them.   
  
Behind where Nico sat was the piano, tantalisingly in view, teasing Maki with its blank pages. If only Nico weren't here, she thought, her muscles tensing with the outrage, she could be writing a new song right now; this might well have been the eureka moment she had been waiting for all day, that briefest of moments when all inspiration in the world came to a single point in her mind and coalesced into a new song. Instead, she sat here in a silence punctuated only by obnoxiously loud slurps from Nico's glass, and by the time she managed to get back to the piano the moment of truth would be long gone and she would be left with nothing to show for the day. Her failure would be entirely Nico's fault, but she alone would have to bear the complaints of the-  
  
“So,” Nico finally said, and time began to flow again as the tension broke. “This is where the magic happens, huh?” She turned to look at the piano, climbing onto the chair with her knees to get a better view. “Hah, or maybe not?” She turned back to Maki, smug; the telltale blank pages had given her away.  
“Nn... I was just getting started and then you interrupted, so of course I haven't done anything!”  
“Ohh... it's weird, but that window's open but I didn't hear any music~”  
“It's- I have to- I'm not going to waste my time explaining my music to someone like you!”  
“Hey! What's 'someone like me' supposed to mean?”  
Maki turned away, haughty. “Someone who can't appreciate hard work and creative effort.”  
“I appreciate you just fine!” she barked, and then immediately wished for a rewind button; thanks to a sudden shared aversion to eye contact, they were both at least spared noticing the other blushing. “W-what I mean is, I appreciate writing music just fine- I don't even know what you mean by 'hard work' anyway, it's super easy.”  
“Argh, you're so-!” Maki stood, ready for a fight, but then her stance changed, struck by sudden inspiration; head back, cocky. “In that case, why don't you show me how it's done?”  
“E-eh?”  
“I even left the notation blank for you- go ahead, _Nico-Sensei_ , show me how _super easy_ it is.”  
  
Preferring to fight until the bitter end rather than admit her bluff had been correctly called, Nico puffed her cheeks out and rose to the challenge, striding over to the piano with a confidence she couldn't justify. She took her seat and Maki stood behind with her arms folded, eagerly awaiting the oncoming masterpiece. Nico adjusted her position on the stool, and rolled up her sleeves. She straightened the notation papers a little, and shuffled herself to the right a bit. She took a deep breath, feeling the positions of the keys, and shifted to the left slightly. Clearing her throat, she brushed a hair out of her face, and shuffled-  
“Enough! Get on with it!” Maki barked.  
“Alright, alright! I have to get in the right frame of mind, that's all. Astounding genius like mine doesn't just happen!”  
“Ha, I'd say so too.”  
“Psh!” Nico boldly placed her hands over the keys in a way that seemed more or less correct, and full of conviction pressed down as hard as she could muster; the tone produced was both dreadful and loud, sending cold electric shivers through their bones and nearly startling Nico off the stool.   
  
“What... was _that_?” asked Maki, as she recovered.  
“U-uhh... W-well, there's the problem!” crowed Nico. “This room is too small, the acoustics are terrible!”  
“...What.”  
“Yeah, the way it all echoed back at the piano so it sounded all weird, it's because the room is too small. Honestly, I don't know how you can stand to play music in this cramped little shoebox.” She cast a disapproving eye over the cramped little shoebox- a space larger than many people's entire first floor. “The piano lounge in mum's country home is three times the size of this, and-”  
“...Stop it.” Her brow was furrowed, and the fire gone.  
“Hah, not getting jealous are you? Don't like that someone else has it better-”  
“Why... Why do you still feel like you have to lie to me?” She was quiet and earnest, not at all like their usual bickering. Nico's tone darkened in response.  
“ _What_ did you just accuse me of?”  
“We've been to your house before, we already know it's- not like this place.” It was an awful save, and far too late; by trying to avoid touching the nerve, she'd made it sound even worse. She winced, expecting this to be one jab too many, but Nico only shrugged, the full brash act back on in gusto.  
“Oh jeez, I thought I told you? We only stay there while mum's working. It's closer to the school and the driver's busy ferrying her around, so...”  
But Maki stood her ground. “I came to visit you,” she said quietly. “I went to your house, but I saw your mother there.”  
Nico was aghast. “So... so now you're spying on me?” she seethed.  
“I'm not spying on you, idiot! I wanted- I was going to surprise you!- but I saw your mother was there and figured you'd be embarrassed if I visited!”  
“I wouldn't be embarrassed-”  
“The fact we're having this conversation at all is proof you would! You don't have to lie to me about this stuff, you know?”  
“I-!... I don't have to stay here and listen to this!” She stood and bolted, but Maki grabbed her wrist as she flew past. Nico struggled but Maki's strength won out and she pushed Nico up against the wall, pinning her in place.  
“Why- Why do you have to lie to us!”  
“Let go of me...!”  
“Why can't you see none of this matters-”  
“Get off!”  
“-because we all love- _care_ about you anyway?”  
  
Nico stopped struggling. “ _What_ did you just say?” she said, her voice low.  
“I- I said we care about you!” she answered, wholly aware that this wasn't what Nico meant.   
“Before that!”  
She hesitated a moment. “...None of it matters because-”  
“Ngh! Don't play stupid, you know what I mean!”  
“If you already know what I said, then why should I say it again!”  
“It still counts even if you change it halfway, so you should just say it!”  
“Ngnhgnhgrrhgr...” she pulled away from Nico to fold her arms, making special effort to ensure Nico could be in no doubt how much disdain she had for her awful choice of words. “I said... 'we love you'. B-But you're exactly the kind of idiot who would take that to mean something it _doesn't_ , so I-”  
“Maaaaaaaaakiiiiiiiiii-chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan... loooooooves Niiicoooooo-chaaaaaaan?”  
“Grrgh! See, that's exactly what I mean!”  
“Maaaaaaaaaaaakiiiii-chaaaaaaaaaaaaan!” With a huge grin, Nico lunged forward for the second time today, and this time Maki was too slow to stop her.   
“Th-that's _not_ what I said!” she wheezed through Nico's unexpectedly tight grip.  
“No, but you did, you did! 'We' includes 'me' so you did! I'm sooooo haaaaapppy~~~~~”  
“Ngh... Hey, now wait a minute!”  
  
She forced Nico away from her, and pointed an accusing finger in her face. “The others might let you get away with it, but you know I won't let you hide behind all that cutesy idol stuff. Stop hiding from it and answer me! Why can't you just be honest with us?”  
Nico absent-midnedly rubbed her wrist, defeated. “You... You just don't get it, do you? You're the last person I can be honest with!!”  
“Eh? ...If you don't want me telling the others-”  
“It's not about the _others_!” Nico had tears in her eyes. “I just didn't want _you_ thinking I was some kind of loser!”  
“...What?”  
“You're so cool, and aloof, and you have this big house, and a beach house, and a fancy piano- I've never even touched a piano! Why... why would someone like you look twice at someone like me?”  
Maki was taken aback. “You make that stuff up... to impress me?” She closed her eyes, brow furrowed. “Thinking you need to impress _me_... you really are an idiot...”  
“Oh, well I'm soooo sorry, I guess I'll just leave you to-”  
“Hey. Sit down.”  
“What?”  
“Why don't you ever listen? I said sit down!”  
  
With a little more force than was necessary, Maki ushered Nico to the piano stool and pressed her shoulders down until Nico complied. Wordlessly, she took hold of Nico's left hand, pulled her fingers apart, and set them on the keys, pushing down on them to produce a chord. “That chord's called 'C',” she said. “It's an important one, so you'd better remember it.”  
“...What are you doing?” Nico asked.  
Maki sat down next to her, nudging her along a bit as she did so. “How can we write a song together if you don't even know how to play?”   
Nico looked at Maki, and couldn't help but match her smile; genuine and warm, a brief tender moment before the sparks inevitably started flying again.  
  
“You'd just better be a quick learner.”  
“Pfft! Give me a week and I'll be teaching _you_ stuff!”

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if the lessons would really last a week... or even ten minutes.  
> “You're not trying hard enough!”  
> “I am! I just have small hands!”  
> “You have a small brain, more like!”  
> etc.
> 
> I find Nico and Maki fairly easy to find a voice for, but it's easy to accidentally make them sound the same. They both have prickly tempers, but while Nico's is more brash and aggressive I think Maki is more aloof and withdrawn. Put them together and it's an explosion waiting to happen. Their conversations are like verbal games of “Not touching you!”- but I think because of that, they each bring the other out of the shell. I don't know if it's the healthiest way to do it, but it seems to work for them.
> 
> I'm always at a loss whether or not to use honorifics in my fics. I usually opt not to, as I personally find it a little awkward to use them in english-language fics, plus I'm not anywhere near confident enough in the way they're used to be sure I'm using them correctly. Rather than try to navigate the minefield of japanese-language politeness, it's easier just to ignore it. For Love Live though, their use of honorifics is a very important part of the relationships between all the girls- dropping all mention of social hierarchy is a defining part of their friendship.
> 
> It's especially important in Nicomaki's case- Maki doesn't call anyone '-chan'... except Nico! And Nico is the same! Because they both make special exception for each other in that regard, I felt that including the '-chan's was too important. Plus, Nico adding a long, annoying, whiny '-chaaaaaannnnnn~' to Maki's name is a surefire way to get a rise out of her! :D
> 
> Now's the sappy bit, if you want to switch off from that! As mentioned, this is an anniversary present for my fiancee- our fifth anniversary to be exact. Thankfully our romance involves far less bickering than the one in the piece... well, a little less, anyway. We discovered the world of Love Live together after a mutual friend told us about SIF, and it's been a hugely enjoyable ride with the best of company. We watched the anime together, were both reduced to floods of tears by the last few episodes, and now we're both eagerly awaiting the movie. I'm a very lucky bear to have someone in my life I can share this stuff with- I can't wait to see what other adventures we'll have together.
> 
> I also can't wait to be joint owner of her Hanayo nendo.


End file.
